A few days ago
Dustin W

Can you put a trademark on, or need a copyright for a word that’s in the dictionary?

Ie, sorcery, summon, relic, magic, spell, arcane, envoke, construct, goblin, fae, faerie, etc? AEther? Subtype? I know these are universal words, but I don’t wanna get knocked for using them… in a card game…

Top 1 Answers
A few days ago
Expat Mike

Favorite Answer

Individual words and common phrases are not protected under copyright laws. Trademark laws only protects things for marketing purposes, so you other than the name of your game, you should be free to use whatever words you want. (For example, if there was a game called “Summon!”, you couldn’t call your game “Summon” but you’re free to have a summoning card.)

However, I’m not a lawyer and if you wind up producing this game commercially, you should hire a firm that specializes in copyright and trademark law to “clear” your game and make sure there won’t be any legal snafus. It’ll cost you a couple hundred dollars, but it’ll be worth it.

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